Primary Assessment Matters #TalkingLeaders

Working with Ambition School Leadership (@Ambition_SL), we are looking to host a twitter chat on Monday 20th February 2017 from 7:30 – 8:30 pm. I’ve drafted out a few questions below in the hope that we can crowd source some sensible answers via twitter.

The challenges facing primary schools, with respect to assessment, seem to fall into two broad categories; assessment for accountability and assessment to promote learning & support teaching.

Assessment for Accountability

Should teacher assessment ever be used for accountability purposes?

There are a couple of sub-sections to this; all to be addressed within the first twenty minutes.

What does independent writing mean when used as part of the Teacher Assessment of Writing at the end of Key Stage 2? What’s allowed? What would constitute malpractice?

How can we secure reliable and consistent school to school teacher assessment? Not just within a local authority but also across local authorities?

Can we secure a robust consistent baseline that doesn’t involve teacher assessment? How? When would be the best time to determine a baseline to assess progress in a primary school?

Assessment to Promote Learning

Life after levels is very different from school to school. Too many schools have simply replaced levels with something that is basically levels.

How has your school approached life after level? Evolution, revolution or has nothing much changed?

Couple of questions that will help prompt discussion in the middle part of the twitter chat.

How are you assessing the progress of the pupils in your class? Are there any significant differences between assessment in reading, writing or mathematics? What about in Early Years & Reception?

How are you reporting to parents? Any feedback on what they think of the new statutory systems at the end of Key Stage 1 & 2?

Assessment to Support Teaching

I sometimes wonder whether this is the Cinderella element of the assessment system; the use of assessment information to feedback to teachers is so important but often side lined but the focus on external accountability and pupil progress.

How do you use assessment information in your school to support teaching in the classroom?

How do you get teachers to use assessment information to improve their teaching?

Do you have a standard system or process operating across the school? Is it up to individual teachers to do this or is it part of a collaborative process?

Concrete examples would be very welcome.

A couple of etiquette rules for the #TalkingLeaders session. No promotion of commercial products or blog posts; we want this to be a dialogue between teachers. Please remember to use the hashtag #TalkingLeaders or we will miss your contribution. Hopefully see you there.

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